Holiday Cheer
by Deranged Black Kitten
Summary: A few short Christmas/holiday oneshots of a dark and unusual nature, each focusing on a certain character.
1. Conner: Let it Snow

_Hello everyone! _

_Timing-wise, this probably would have been a better thing to post for the week leading up to Christmas day, however, the idea and the various mini-plots I have for this didn't strike me until just today, so I'll just have to settle for this being in the last week of December._

_I will be posting seven different Christmas/holiday themed short stories for this final week of December, the first six of which will have a serious and sometimes dark edge to them, and each one will focus on one character of the main team in particular. The final seventh story will be more light and happy to ease heavy hearts from the first six one-shots. _

_**Disclaimer: **I of course don't own Young Justice. _

_Some SuperMartian in this part, and I should point out that there'll be different pairings for each oneshot, some of which might be slash, or in some cases, no pairings at all._

_And without further ado, here's the first oneshot. _

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_**Conner – Let It Snow**_

He supposed that he should at least consider himself lucky that it was a cold winter at Happy Harbor, and in the Northeast of the country for that matter as well, otherwise he'd likely be stuck in a freezer until the League found some kind of counter-spell, and that was too much like being back in a pod for his liking. He could do without all the snow though, as much as it helped. He was quickly finding himself growing sick of it.

"It's not the weirdest problem we've ever faced, but it's definitely in the top five," Wally commented, poking Conner in the side, and let out a flustered squawk when his finger sunk a little bit too deep into the compacted snow. He disappeared in a blur and reappeared a second later with a handful of fresh snow from outside, quickly but carefully packing the frozen crystals over the indent in the clone's side.

"I think it's kind of..." M'gann trailed off, and then finished with a smile, "Cool."

She giggled, and it warmed Conner's heart...

In the figurative sense, as he was very much the equivalent of a living snowman.

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His teammates blasted the AC at Mount Justice, turned it into a verifiable icebox.

They endured cold noses and wearing thick, warm jackets inside – their breaths forming small cloudy puffs in the air – all so that he was comfortable, all so that he didn't have to constantly stay outside in the snowbanks.

He couldn't have asked for better friends.

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They joked about it at first – Wally had wrapped a red and green scarf around his neck at one point and between the speedster, Robin, and Artemis, one of them was always offering him a carrot for some reason. It was just such a strange situation, him being made of snow, and how else were they suppose to react to it?

Except snow was weak. Snow could melt and even crumble from something as simple as him trying to open the fridge door.

And suddenly it wasn't funny anymore and they could only wait and wonder what was taking the League so long with finding a cure.

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He stood off the the side and watched them spar. Training was out of the question for him, because he couldn't take a hit, because he was too... _fragile. _

Icy lips curled up into a sneer.

"I have a different sort of training for you," Black Canary said, drawing him out of his thoughts. "A test of strength."

Except it was different than the usual tests in strength. Whereas before, the consequences could mean him hurting someone else, now it could only mean harming himself, because if he punched the wall in a fit of rage, he could crumble his hand into nothing, and if he clumsily ran into the edge of a counter, rather than break the counter as he had before, he could accidentally cleave a gash into his side.

It was a sort of grace he'd never needed to know before, a kind of lightness on his feet, and moving as gently and as carefully as he could.

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There was an emerald dusting to her cold cheeks and her eyes glimmered in the moonlight. He was standing in snow that came up past his knees, down near the base of the mountain, and she was hovering just nearby, not wanting to further disturb the freshly fallen blanket of white.

"Your eyes are still blue," she said quietly, hovering closer, "even though the rest of you is pure white, they're still very blue."

Her gloves melted away, exposing green fingers, and she reached down and grabbed handfuls of snow off the ground. Her eyes never leaving his, with a soft touch, she patted the snow against his sides, his arms, his chest. Smoothing over rough edges – nicks and dents he had gotten over the past several days from just moving around the mountain, from just trying to _live_ while in this current form.

He stood, well, _frozen _in place under her ministrations, not really knowing what to do or say – the right way to react, because he liked her touch and if he did the wrong thing, she might stop.

She did stop eventually, her hands resting on his snowy shoulders, and there was a brief silence between them that wasn't at all awkward like in all of those movies that she liked to watch so much.

Then she leaned in close, her head lowering down to his neck, and her warm breath ghosting over him sent a small shiver up his spine.

And with one quick swipe of her tongue, she licked up the side of his neck.

He blinked as she drew back with a small laugh, light and airy, and an apologetic look on her face.

"Sorry, I just... have been wanting to do that since day one of this whole thing," she explained sheepishly, hugging her arms a bit tighter around herself as she drifted further away, "That was... that was weird, right?"

He pulled her down into a kiss.

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The glow faded from Kaldur's water bearers as the Atlantean lowered them to his sides, and they all breathed a sigh of relief that their leader's reaction time had been so swift – all except for M'gann, who had tears streaming down her face.

Conner frowned. He didn't like it when she cried.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I'm so, so _sorry!"_

The hot cooking pot lay steaming on the ground in a puddle of once boiling water and cooked spaghetti noodles.

And Conner's left arm from the elbow down to his wrist was solid ice – having been reformed and frozen thanks to Kaldur's quick water work after it had been completely melted away.

"I just– just lost my concentration and I didn't see you there," she babbled tearfully, "And I'm so sorry! This is all my fault!"

"It's alright," he tried to tell her, but she was all too aware that he couldn't move his left hand at all now, and when he reached out to her, she just shook her head and quickly flew away, off down the halls to who knows where.

He stood there dumbly, not knowing what to do, what he could say.

Artemis patted a hand on his shoulder – _gently – _and offered him a half-hearted smile, "I'll go talk to her," and then disappeared from the kitchen as well.

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The snow could be re-packed, could fill in the dings and dents and make him whole again.

But what about when summer came?

And what if there was nothing left to pack fresh snow on to?

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They had small missions that winter, missions he had to sit out of, because what if the villain hit too hard? What then?

It had to happen eventually though.

A dangerous mission where he just couldn't stand on the sidelines any longer while his friends were hurt. He could have called for back-up, he realized that now, but in the heat of the moment when the ones he cared about were in danger, he just didn't think about it, was too busy hopping a zeta-beam to the mission site, and by the time the thought did occur to him, he knew there wasn't enough time to waste waiting for anyone else to show up.

Water puddled about his feet, running off of him in rivulets, and how ridiculous was it that his kryptonite now was central heating?

He pushed himself to keep moving forward though, despite the weakness he felt, despite his body growing thinner – because they were hurting, because _she_ was hurting.

Snow crumbled off him in clumps as he shouldered his way through door after door to where they were being held. He was aware of her finding his mind, latching onto it and saying _"No, no, turn back, it's too dangerous!"_

She gave him a wide-eyed look of horror when he burst onto the scene, fear for his life, for his safety burning in her eyes, but he didn't care about himself, he only cared about them, about her, about the cage holding them in the center of the warehouse floor, about the blood covering them all, Wally and Robin on the ground not moving, and Kaldur, Artemis, and M'gann barely able to sit up.

And then Bane was there with a booming laugh, " –really think you're a match for me, _Snow White?"_

A first plowed straight through Conner's chest, but there were no organs there, just snow, and even though things got a little fuzzy around the edges, he was otherwise unfazed and struck back with a solid hand of ice, not caring about the way fingers chipped off from the strike, and he kept hitting until Bane stumbled back and fell to one knee, and his hand was gone by that point – nothing but a jagged edge.

It wasn't the hero way.

It wasn't what Superman would do.

But he wasn't Superman, and his friends were in trouble.

He stabbed out, blood slicking the ice and staining white snow red, and then Bane was down for the count. Not dead, because at the very least, he cared about what his friends thought, and he didn't want them to see him as a killer, but the man was injured enough.

From there, it was a lot easier. Dodging around henchmen grunts, not about to waste the time and energy. He retrieved his teammate's confiscated weapons – Kaldur's water bearers, Robin's belt, Artemis' bow and arrow – and slid it all through the bars of the cage, because at least if they had that, they had a fighting chance.

Per his instruction, Kaldur used the water on the ground, water that had been melting off of him, to cut through the lock to the cage. The action clearly didn't sit right with the Atlantean, but got the job done all the same, and Conner was grateful to see that Robin and Wally were beginning to come around at this point too.

He swept M'gann up into icy, wet arms – could feel her fingers sinking into the melting snow of his back as she pressed closed eyes against his shoulder and quietly scolded him for putting himself in so much danger. Around them, Artemis and Kaldur fought off the henchmen and Robin and Wally struggled to rise to their feet.

And then there was a _click_ noise off to the side. Blue eyes snapped over to see not another henchman, but a villain, one he recognized as being from Gotham.

A team-up with Bane.

Firefly raised his flamethrower, and Conner realized that he wasn't the only one weak against such an attack.

He pushed M'gann out of the way.

He could hear her scream his name as flames consumed his vision, eating up the sight of Kaldur raising his water bearers in his direction.

Too late to matter though.

He'd forgotten what heat like this felt like.

.

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All snow has to melt away at some point.

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_That's all for part one and Conner's story. _

_I feel I should point out that each oneshot is unrelated to the other. _

_Here's hoping that I can get the rest of these out this week. _

_As always, reviews are love, so let me know what you think. _


	2. Artemis: Secret Santa

_Part 2 here._

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**Artemis – Secret Santa**

Painted lips stretched out into a too-wide smile.

"Come on now, you all just need to get into the _Christmas Spirit!"_

It was the sort of speech you'd hear from some family-TV Christmas Special, about giving and joy and good-will in man, but coming from _him_ mutated it into something twisted and vile.

Blood dripped from the cuffs biting deep into her wrists, down onto the sparkling blanket of fake snow, and she couldn't help the tensing of her shoulders when he stepped up behind her, the jingling of silver bells signaling his movements. She tried to keep her face expressionless, unaffected – _Daddy's perfect little soldier – _not afraid of anything, not even the Prince of Clowns himself, but she couldn't stop her slight flinch when he suddenly crouched down next to her.

A muffled shout of protest had her glancing over in Wally's direction, watching the red-head struggling against his own bindings which were a lot more extensive than hers, enough to keep a speedster like him from moving. There was fire burning in those green eyes, fire burning in all their eyes, even Conner who was half-unconscious from the green glow of Christmas lights strung around him.

A deathly pale hand suddenly holding a santa hat in front of her face drew her attention back to the Joker, back to the quiet chuckling in her ear as he hovered close.

"How's about _arrow girl _gets first pick," the deranged man announced gleefully, like she should be honored to go first, and when she made no move to play his game, he gave the hat an encouraging shake, "Well, go on then!"

Artemis glared down at the furry red and white fabric, her shoulder's arching stubbornly.

His warm breath slithered across the side of her face as he leaned in especially close and whispered, "Or I could just shoot them all here and now, maybe cut out _magician girl's _tongue, hmm? Of course, that would spoil all the fun, and we wouldn't want that, not would we?"

Zatanna – who shouldn't have even been on this mission in the first place, who was there because of them, because of her, because she'd wanted a friend along for the ride because lately, she'd been feeling so distant from all of her other teammates.

Her lips curled up into a sneer, and with jerky movements, she reached into the santa hat, her cuffed hands sifting through small folded-up squares of paper, and she had no idea what this was about, what she was consequently agreeing to, just knowing that it couldn't be good if it was the Joker's idea.

She pulled out a piece of paper, unfolded it with dull eyes, and what was written on it was two words, a designation, a title.

'_Magician Girl.'_

Zatanna.

_And what did it even mean?_

She crushed the paper in one fist, but the Joker already saw, letting out a loud cackle as he sprung to his feet, doing a kind of springing dance as he clapped his hands, and then those hands were grabbing her by her forearms, dragging her towards the brightly lit Christmas tree, to the colorful and festive wrapping paper of the gifts piled beneath it.

"Now see, your Uncle J understands that this party was a bit last-minute for you kids," the Joker said, "and that you didn't have time to go out and get gifts yourself, so I'm doing you all a favor and providing the gifts for you."

She couldn't help her quiet, pained grunt as he dropped her on the ground in front of the pile of presents.

"You're up first, _arrowette,_" his voice was a menacing rumble, "Pick out a gift for your magician friend."

Her eyes warily scanned the wrapped boxes of varying sizes, and she could only guess what horrible things rested beneath the cartoon Santas and snowmen, beneath the red and green patterns and the peaceful-looking snowflakes over a light blue background, because it was the _Joker _they were dealing with, someone without logic, a complete madman, and the contents of those boxes could be anything from a bomb, to Joker gas, to an actual kid's toy.

The toe of his boot pressed against her spine, "Don't spoil the fun, girl."

With a shaking hand, she grabbed a small box with snowflake wrapping paper, not about to shake it in case that set something off inside, and as soon as she had it within her grasp, she was being dragged again and was dropped in a heap by Zatanna, lying side-by-side with just a few feet between them. Her eyes met bright blue, but she kept the gift close to her chest, not wanting to hand it over, not wanting to move on to the next step of whatever the Joker had planned.

There was a frustrated growl from behind her, and something cold and steely pressed down hard against her cheek, the end of a crowbar. She held back a shiver.

Words muffled by duct tape, Zatanna called out to her, blue eyes pleading, silently asking for the gift, except the dark-haired girl's arms were tied behind her back and how did Joker even expect her to –

"Looks like you'll have to open the gift for her," he said quietly, calmly, mouth grinning again.

Her heart racing, she hesitantly tore at the wrapping paper, and surely a box so small couldn't be so bad. _Surely – _

A syringe.

A syringe with who knows what inside.

Laugher danced in the air around them.

"_A-ha, _oh my, _ha ha, _what do you think could be inside? _Ha ha ha!"_

Those blue eyes stared down at the syringe with so much fear, then flickered up to her, staring at her, _staring at her with fear. _

"Let's find out then," the Joker prodded, "Shall we?"

It brought her back, the fear in those eyes – back to when she was a little girl, back to Dad's lessons – _"Today you're going to learn all the best ways to dislocate a body-part." – _back to the tests – "_It's about learning your place. Here's your target. Take care of him."__ – _all of her training – _"A live target is the best thing to learn on." – _all the people she had hurt, the things she had done to them while under her father's guidance, the fear in their eyes.

"Well, don't keep us waiting _sidekick."_

No.

No, she couldn't.

"Pick up the syringe."

She didn't want to be that person anymore.

She had redeemed herself, she was doing good things now, and although she hadn't completely made up for all the sins she had done, she wasn't about to add more, couldn't do it, _wouldn't _do it.

And she never wanted to see that look of fear directed at her again, not from the eyes of teammates, not from the people she cared about – good people, innocent people.

"I _said –!"_

She picked up the syringe.

There was satisfaction in the Joker's voice, "Good."

And she erased the madman's glee when she quickly twisted around in place and stabbed the syringe into his leg, pressing the plunger down, feeling her own satisfaction at the man's startled shout.

Her mouth stretched up into a smile even as the Joker brought the crowbar down upon her, happy even despite the circumstances because she'd gotten a fair hit in herself, because whatever had been in that syringe would likely take effect soon and her teammates, her friends would be safe, and because –

– because she wasn't that girl anymore.

She wasn't.

She_ wasn't. _

She_– crack_

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_Two down, five more to go, and I swear, I'm not planning on killing everyone. In fact, I'm leaving it open-ended here for you to decide if they lived or died. _

_Reviews are much appreciated. :)_


	3. M'gann: Reindeer Games

_Part 3. Miss Martian's clothing change is for practicality's sake. _

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**M'gann – Reindeer Games**

Without forethought, she strengthened her skin against the bite of leather and steel, adding scales where was needed as she pulled on the chains connecting her to the airship, the vest-like harness digging into her shoulder blades, her chest and her waist.

She'd long since gotten rid of her cape and her skirt had been exchanged for a pair of shorts – not exactly the most protective outfit she could wear, but she'd found over time through trial and error that changing her skin was much more effective than just changing the strength of her uniform, as it seemed that no matter what texture or type of fabric she made them, against soft human flesh, even martian flesh, the harness never failed to pull and rub against her, leaving raw and sometimes bloody bands running along green skin.

Touching down onto the next nearest floating landmass, she stumbled as the airship's momentum kept it moving forward another several feet, dragging her along with it before it finally slowed to a stop. Panting, she leaned forward and rested her hands on bare knees, taking a moment to regain her breath and gather together some much-needed strength.

She was tired. It was difficult to judge just how long she'd been pulling the airship and its cargo for, as there was no night and day here, just a continuous kind of dusk, but she wouldn't be wrong in guessing that it had been over a week now, much longer than these trips usually lasted. She knew that she was getting close though – could sense it in the minds of those residing in the cockpit of the airship – and she hoped that they would decide to stop just one more time before finishing up the rest of the journey, let her rest for a short while, feed her and give her water.

She projected her needs outward, letting it brush against their minds, her growing exhaustion, hunger and thirst, and the response she received shortly after was a tugging at the reins wrapped around her wrists, telling her to _keep moving. _No stopping yet, maybe later but not now.

M'gann let out a huff of frustration, sending out a wave of irritation at their minds that she knew would have them shifting uncomfortably in their seats, but she straightened back up anyway, stretching out her limbs and shaking off the lingering need to close her eyes and sleep.

Pushed through some unknown portal on Earth in the middle of a mission several months back, she'd found herself stranded on this planet where the laws of physics didn't seem to apply, as there was gravity here and yet the land around her floated through the air in chunks and pieces. It was a situation she was familiar with though, stuck on some strange new world, and just as she'd had to before, she took stock of her surroundings, the blinding fog around her, and adjusted herself accordingly – casting out a bright light in the form of glowing green skin.

It's what drew them to her, the planet's residents, and she's quite sure that despite the obvious advantage her glowing skin offered, it was only because of the feelings of peace and good-will that she projected out to them that they didn't kill her on the spot, or at least try to, for as she quickly discovered, this was a war-torn planet and trust was hard to come by.

Although she couldn't have known it at the time, the way she had acted when they'd first found her was the way the various animal species on this planet acted – mental projections of emotions in their most basic form – and add to that the obvious language barrier between them, one she couldn't break with her telepathy, to them she was some mysterious creature, an animal, and they took her in as such.

She could fly and her glowing skin could cut through the ever-present fog of this planet's atmosphere, and in their eyes it was an opportunity, the potential for something good, something beneficial.

She remembered the first time they had leashed her up to one of their airships. Glowing green fingers had tugged at the harness curiously, her eyes following the chain attached to the back of it up to the school-bus-sized airship hovering several feet up in the air, mostly empty save for a couple crates of food and one of the alien beings in what was more or less the driver's seat while several others stood in a wide circle around her, watching her with a feeling of anticipation on their minds. They made strange gestures at her that she didn't understand and said things that she also failed to grasp. It wasn't until they started making waving motions up into the sky, the image of her flying displayed brightly in their minds, that she decided to take a leap of faith –

– quite literally, taking off into the sky.

And pulling the airship right along with her, gaining a couple startled shouts that quickly evolved into something that could almost pass for laughter.

She was strong, strong enough to pull an airship, strong enough to pull it faster than the slow speeds its old engines could barely get it to run at, and with her telekinesis, she could move aside floating landmasses that got in the ship's path, preventing so many collisions as she guided it and pulled it through the fog. They'd quickly realized how much smoother she made the trips go, how much safer and how much faster, and she found herself being hooked up to more and more ships, some small and some quite large, and traveling more and more through the planet's foggy landscape.

She was an asset to them in the same way a work horse was an asset to a farm, except she was the only 'work horse' they had, and they knew that as much as she did. For as long as they could help it, they weren't about to let her go.

More tugging on the reins around her wrists called an end to her short reprieve. Wiping sweaty bangs out of her eyes, she tightened her now loose ponytail and lifted off from the ground once more.

Take-off was always easiest, and she reveled in that brief moment of weightlessness before the chains went taut and she bore the weight of airship behind her – what the hover-devices and worn-down engines couldn't account for, which was a lot. Brow furrowing with effort – because she was just so stretched thin from this long journey – she brightened the green glow of her skin which had dimmed just so slightly in her exhaustion, and pulled with all the strength she had left.

The ship began moving once more, starting off slow and then gaining more speed, more momentum, and she pulled it further up and then down and to the side, guiding the steel behemoth around floating landmasses that were too large to push out of the way.

_'Just keep moving, keep pulling.' _

_'Don't think about how tired you are.'_

She huffed through grit teeth, the harness biting into her, shearing off scales as it rubbed through the fabric of her uniform.

_'Getting closer. Nearly there now.'_

A day away, a day and a half at most – that was the general feeling she was getting from their minds.

She could make that.

Just had to keep going, keep up an even pace.

She–

A rocky wall suddenly emerged from the fog in front of her.

M'gann gasped, her eyes growing wide, and she had to ignore the panic she felt coming from inside the ship as she shot straight up as fast as she could and put all of her focus into changing the aircraft's direction.

She hadn't sensed it, she was just so tired and she hadn't sensed it coming in time.

Along with putting all of her strength into pulling the ship up and away, she reached out with her telekinesis and wrapped it around the ship, doing all that she could to drag it back, doing all that she could to cushion the inevitable collision because they were just too close to avoid it completely.

The grating sound of steel on stone met her ears as the side of the ship dragged against the landmass, tearing away metal-plating and several hover-panels along with it. With one final burst of strength, she cleared them of the top of the landmass, the ship smashing through the very outer edge of it in the process and scattering car-sized boulders into the air before both she and it came crashing down onto the land's flat surface.

It sapped her of the last of her strength. She couldn't even form a small shield around herself as the ship carved a gouge into the landmass' surface, dragging her along with it as it slid to a stop. She could only curl in on herself, her arms covering her head as the glow dimmed down to practically nothing and tell herself that she'd taken worse hits than this.

Everything slowed to a near standstill as the ship finally stopped and she stayed curled up on the ground while all around, dust floated up into the already foggy air. Then she heard the sound of the cockpit door opening followed shortly by the sound of several pairs of feet hitting the ground. There was an angry shout, an angry shout directed at her, and the sound of one of those pairs of feet stomping in her direction.

Her mouth pursed into a frown, but she still didn't move from the ground.

Then there was another sound that could be heard over the shouts, a _crack_ in the air and suddenly a thin strip of leather was biting into her curled back – because she was just an animal to them, a beast with much lower intelligence who could understand force better than it could any spoken word.

When that whip came sailing down a second time though, she morphed a third appendage out of her back – clawed and angry looking – and caught it before it could strike her again. As she pushed herself up on shaking arms just the slightest bit, glaring up at them through strands of red that fell down into her vision, she changed her colors from green to an angry glowing red, because it was the only kind of communication they ever seemed to understand from her, and when the one with the whip stepped closer, tearing the end of the whip from her grasp and making more angry sounds at her, she flared the red brighter.

The truth of the matter was... that she was a willing captive. They were weak compared to her and she could leave at any time if she wanted to.

But she didn't. She stayed and she endured whatever treatment they gave her, because this planet was at war. Even now, out in the middle of nowhere, she could hear the sounds of battle in the distance, and until she found a way back to Earth, or her teammates found her, she stayed because there was strength in numbers.

By herself, she wouldn't be safe for very long.

With them though, she could sleep safely at whatever base of operations they were staying at. With them, she didn't have to go searching for food she wouldn't even recognize, or try and hunt down a water source, because as their property, as the animal they saw her as, they provided her with these basic necessities.

And she endured these long journeys, she endure pulling these airships back and forth between the various bases and small communities because although there were usually weapons of war in the ship's cargo, there was also always food and water and medicine and various first aid supplies for the soldiers and civilians alike that were at each stop. She could sense the good in them even despite the times and the environment they lived in, and while she couldn't understand them, she could sense their gratitude as she pulled each ship through the front gates, and it was nice to feel like she was helping them, doing her part.

So she would endure.

But she wouldn't submit, not to this kind of brutality, and she had a feeling they knew that because when that first alien raised the whip again and she flared the red even brighter, her shoulders hunching defensively and her fingers clawing into the ground, the others stepped forward and pulled the one with the whip back, removing the offending weapon from that alien's grasp, saying something themselves, and she could only guess what the words meant.

She slumped back down to the ground, watching with cautious eyes at the situation diffused itself, and her third arm melted away. She gradually changed back to her normal green skin, not really bothering at the moment with making the glow very bright in the thick fog.

Two sets of slow, careful footsteps approached, and the two aliens made clicking noises that she supposed were meant to be soothing as they drew near to her. They were carrying something with them, medical supplies grabbed from the cargo bay, and they moved just as carefully when they knelt down by her side.

They worked with gentle hands, or the claw-like appendages that passed as hands for them, and tended to the wounds she had gotten in the crash. Thankfully nothing too serious, and once she rested for a little bit, she'd be able to make the rest of the trip. With several of the hover-panels busted, it would be a lot harder pulling the ship, but once she go her strength back, once she slept and had some food and water, she could manage it, and from the sounds of the airship's crew setting up camp to settle in for a little while, it seemed that they'd come to a similar conclusion.

As they unhooked the harness and began bandaging her up, she closed her eyes, focusing on those gentle hands and thinking about the small youths she would come across when they arrived at the next base, their look of curiosity and awe when they saw her, and how amusing it was when they would walk up to her and pat her on the leg, or go up to her when she was resting and pet their claw-like hands through her hair because they didn't have anything like it themselves and they were so fascinated by it.

And thinking about that made her think about being back on Earth, with her teammates, her friends, and being curled up on the couch with them all at Mount Justice, being as close to them all as possible while a movie played in the background.

She wondered if they were close to finding her.

She wondered if they were even still looking.

She drifted off to the sounds of explosions far off in the distance, the sounds of the aliens cooing and clicking at her, and she curled up in her mind, wrapping memories around herself like a blanket, memories of her friends, of their laughter, of their voices.

She would endure.

She would glow, and she would pull, and she would fight if needed...

...for as long as she had to, until she made it back to them.

* * *

><p>:

_̶C̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶e̶n̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶.̶_

_So that one was a bit different from the other two. Hope you enjoyed it anyway though. _

_Sadly, I don't think I'll be able to finish these all by the end of the week, but I'll keep at it anyway. Four more to go. I feel like Kaldur's and Wally's are going to be the hardest for me to write (for different reasons). _

_Reviews and hearing your thoughts on the story are much appreciated. _


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